Psychological Science ›› 2017, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (5): 1026-1032.

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The Unconscious Influence of Weight on Metacognitive Monitoring and Control

1, 2, 3,   

  • Received:2016-10-23 Revised:2017-02-27 Online:2017-09-20 Published:2017-09-20

重量对元认知监控的无意识影响

李锋盈1,陈颖1,欧阳林2,李伟健3   

  1. 1. 浙江师范大学
    2. 浙江省杭州市余杭区瓶窑镇第一中学
    3. 浙江师范大学教务处
  • 通讯作者: 李伟健

Abstract: Abstract Previous evidence has shown that perceptual cues, such as weight, can affect metacognitive monitoring and control, providing evidence for the embodied nature of metacognition. Moreover, some researchers believe that the influence of perceptual information on metacognition is automatic and unconscious. However,there is no direct evidence to support this hypothesis. According to Reder’ s view, metacognitive monitoring and control can occur without conscious awareness. For example, if people are unaware of what causes them to select one strategy rather than another, then the strategy select is an unconscious metacognitive control. Therefore, it is critical to reveal people’s basis of the metacognitive monitoring and control establishing whether the influence of weight on metacognition is unconscious. For this purpose, we adopted the method of structural knowledge attribution. This method requires participants to report their basis of judgment or decision in each trial using one of a set of fixed options: guess, intuition, memory, and rules.“Guess” indicated that the judgment or decision was based on nothing at all; ‘‘Intuition” indicated that the judgment or decision was based on a hunch or feeling that could not be articulated; ‘‘Memory” indicated that the judgment or decision was based on a recollection; ‘‘Rules” indicated that the judgment or decision was based on a rule (or a belief, or a theory) that could be stated if asked. The “guess” and “intuition” responses were taken to indicate that the basis of the judgments or decisions were unconscious because people had no idea why they made such a judgment or decision. The “memory” and “rules” responses were taken to indicate that the basis of the judgments or decisions were conscious because people know why they made such a judgment or decision. Therefore, the metacognitive process is unconscious when monitoring or control was based on guessing or intuition. And conversely,the metacognitive process is conscious when monitoring or control was based on memory or rules. Following this logic, if the influence of weight on metacognitive monitoring and control is unconscious, the effect of weight on monitoring and control would occur when monitoring and control were based on guessing or intuition. In two experiments, participants studied word pairs affixed to heavy or light pillow boxes, made judgments of learning (experiment 1) or selections for items (experiment 2), as well as reported the basis of each decision. Results showed: 1) the effect of weight on judgments of learning only occurred when the judgments were made based on guessing, JOLs were higher for items affixed to the heavy boxes than those affixed to the light boxes; 2)the effect of weight on selections of items only occurred when the selections were made based on guessing, participants preferred to first select word pairs affixed to heavy paper-boxes, compared with those to light paper-boxes. These results indicate that the influence of weight on metacognitive monitoring and control is unconscious.

Key words: weight, metacognitive monitoring, metacognitive control, structural knowledge attribution, unconscious

摘要: 摘 要 采用结构知识归因的方法,以学习判断和项目优先选择作为元认知监测和控制的指标,考察重量对元认知监控的影响是否是无意识的问题。被试学习粘贴在不同重量纸盒上的词对,进行学习判断(实验1)或项目选择(实验2),并报告其判断或选择的依据。结果:(1)仅当被试基于猜测进行学习判断时,重量才影响元认知监测,表现为被试对重纸盒上的词对做出更高的学习判断;(2)当被试基于猜测和直觉进行项目选择时,重量才影响元认知控制,表现为被试优先选择重纸盒上的词对进行学习。上述结果表明,重量对元认知监测和控制的影响可能是无意识的。

关键词: 重量, 元认知监测, 元认知控制, 结构知识归因, 无意识